The present disclosure pertains to cushioned vinyl floor coverings.
Cushioned vinyl is made by applying several PVC based layers on a carrier, each layer with its own function, for example, impregnation, surface foaming, printing, wear protection and carrier. An important step in the cushioned vinyl process is the foaming step, where the top layer and back layer are being foamed at elevated temperatures and by which the cushioned product is acquired.
Currently wet laid nonwoven glass fleeces are used as carriers in the cushioned vinyl process. They fulfil the requirements to obtain a stable process and a dimensionally stable end product. Moreover, glass fleeces are cheap and can be applied in low weights of about 50 g/m2.
Application of glass fleeces also has disadvantages. Handling of glass fleece may be hazardous to the health of the people concerned. Glass makes the cushioned vinyl product brittle. The product loses its stability already at low elongation levels because of the breaking of the carrier. During installation these elongation levels are often exceeded, especially in corners, on stairs or other places where the product is being folded. The surface becomes uneven at these places. The glass carrier also leads to low tear strength of the product and installers have to be careful not to tear the product, especially on places where cuts have to be made. Transport of cushioned vinyl should not happen without precaution. When a roll is bent too much, the brittle structure causes the roll to break.
For these reasons, the market demands glass free carriers for cushioned vinyl. To overcome the disadvantages that are described, the use of thermoplastic nonwoven carriers can be considered. Application of thermoplastic nonwoven carriers results in much easier and less sensitive installation of the cushioned vinyl product by having higher elongation capacity than glass fleeces. Also thermoplastic nonwoven carriers do not have any negative influence on the health of operators working with these products. Moreover, non woven glass fiber carriers are currently only available in a 4 m width or less. Since producers of cushioned vinyl floor coverings try to satisfy the need for 5 m wide cushioned vinyl floor coverings, there is also a demand for 5 m wide carriers that meet the requirements for cushioned vinyl floor coverings.
Thermoplastic nonwovens are not widely used for cushioned vinyl because of their lower mechanical and thermal stability as compared to glass. Low stability may cause thermal shrinkage, formation of creases and too much loss of product width.
A general demand of carriers for cushioned vinyl is surface regularity, which is necessary to apply the impregnation layer regularly over the full width (4 m-5 m). Furthermore structure openness is needed for penetration of the PVC gel through the carrier in order to have sufficient delamination strength between the top layers and the back cushioned layer. Finally good bonding of the gel to the carrier is needed to have good process speed.
Solutions have been presented for making stable thermoplastic nonwoven carriers for cushioned vinyl but these solutions did not meet with all requirements, either missing an open structure or enough surface regularity or economical attractiveness compared to glass fleece. A possible option to improve the stability by increasing the weight can only be done to a limited extend in order to keep the structure open enough.
Document FR 2,013,722 discloses a nonwoven mat made from nylon (polyamide) filaments with a vinyl chloride coating usable as floor covering. The nonwoven mat is bonded by hydrogen bonds at the points of intersection of the filaments. In this way it seems hardly possible to obtain a carrier with an acceptable stability.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,234,651 discloses a process for the manufacture of a nonwoven product having high shear strength and dimensional stability. This product may be used for cushioned vinyls. The product comprises polyethylene terephthalate (PET) filaments and it exhibits a unit area weight of 150-400 g/m2. Such high unit area weight will make the necessary impregnation quite difficult.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,363,845 discloses a nonwoven fabric made from thermoplastic filaments having a PVC coating that may be used as cushioned vinyl floor covering. Although this nonwoven fabric has high dimensional stability, production is quite laborious as a multiplicity of filament groups and individual filaments must be intermixed and subsequently bonded with a secondary binder. In order to achieve the necessary stability an unit area weight of about 200 g/m2 is required.
It is an object of this disclosure to overcome the disadvantages of the prior art.